“… it appears we may have pushed our luck one day too long in attempting to keep this facility in operation …” 

Cable from William Sullivan, U.S. Ambassador to Laos, to the U.S. State Department, March 11, 1968

I don’t know if Sullivan really sent that cable… I just read somewhere that he did. But if he didn’t send it, he should have.

I’ve had several false starts trying to write about Lima Site – 85… Phou Pha Thi. There a mish-mash of confusing information available, so it’s hard to tell what really happened there. One problem is the tragedy was classified (mostly “top secret) longer than most others. Some documents are still classified or redacted more than fifty years later.

So I give up. I can’t possibly describe everything here. It would take a book, and even then I’m not sure I could make definitive conclusions. The problem is everyone writes from their “side.” Perhaps the most telling is a book written from the North Vietnamese side.

At the end of this, I’ll give you links and places where you can get more information. For now, here’s the extra short version: Continue reading →